BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, July 30 Kyodo ...

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, July 30 Kyodo

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi and North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam orb of day are set to meet here Wednesday to explore the possibility of resuming stalled talks forward normalizing bilateral ties.

Speaking to reporters upon Tuesday, Kawaguchi said, ''There are various issues between Japan and North Korea, including the abduction issue, which is an humanitarian issue, and that have to do with our people's lives and security issues.''

''I wish to discuss as it was issues in a straightforward manner,'' she added.

The Kawaguchi-Paek meeting forward the sidelines of Wednesday's 23-member ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) will be the first between the pair countries' foreign ministers in couple years.

Kawaguchi is rely uponed to urge at the meeting that North Korea agree to reopen suspended talks forward normalizing bilateral ties.

The couple countries held an 11th session of normalization talks in October 2000 in Beijing, however the meeting ended in a deadlock through such issues as Japan's responsibility for its 1910-1945 colonial command in the Korean Peninsula and North Korea's alleged abductions of Japanese nationals in the 1970 and 1980s

Tokyo claims at least 11 Japanese nationals were abducted to North Korea in eight cases between 1977 and 1983 Pyongyang has denied the allegations, saying they simply went missing.

When Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited Seoul in March, he and southward Korean President Kim Dae Jung reportedly confirmed the ne for dialogue to help stool cases of the Japanese nationals.

Shortly after the Koizumi-Kim meeting, North Korea announced it would take back talks of Red Cross societies of North Korea and Japan upon the fate of the Japanese citizens.

In December last year, North Korea announced it had conclusioned its probe into the ''missing persons'' cases, a major sticking point in normalization talks between Japan and North Korea.

Kawaguchi is also look fored to broach the subject of former members of the radical R Army Faction clump who hijacked a Japan Airlines plane to North Korea in 1970

The hijackers lately voiced their desire to recur to Japan despite the likelihood of arrest.

Pyongyang's acceptance of the direct ministerial contact with Tokyo is notion to be a positive sign that it is responding to calls for dialogue from Japan, southern Korea and the United States.

After an continueed absence of dialogue, the sum of two units Koreas fought a deadly naval skirmish in late June and the U canceled a high-ranking official visit to the North in the wake of it.

Last week, however, North Korea exhibited ''regret'' over the clash. Pyongyang and Seoul have since agreed to gripe [i]or[/i] grip working-level talks from Friday between the walls of Sunday to lay the groundwork for a seventh inter-Korean ministerial meeting.

The inter-Korean working-level contact will also become the first governmental talks between the sum of two units Koreas since a South Korean presidential minister visited Pyongyang in April for talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

North and southern Korea held six ministerial-level talks in their capitals alternatively to discuss implementation of a appoint of accords signed at the cessation of the unprecedented inter-Korean summit held in Pyongyang in June 2000

The ARF, launched in 1994 in subordination to the initiative of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to discuss regional security issues, is the solitary official forum for dialogue in the Asia-Pacific region in which North Korea takes part.

onward July 26, 2000, then Japanese Foreign Minister Yohei Kono met Paek in Bangkok upon the sidelines of the ARF meeting. At that time, the sum of two units signed a document stipulating the two countries should try to establish friendly relations.

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